Neighbors
by The All Real Numbers Symbol
Summary: The Winter Soldier didn't enjoy explaining what his job was or making small talk to people he barely knew anyway, not to mention the fact that it's hard to look nonchalant when you're wearing clothes that make people suspicious and your unconscious partner is slung over your shoulder. Oneshot.


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 **Neighbors**

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 **Summary** : The Winter Soldier didn't enjoy explaining what his job was or making small talk to people he barely knew anyway, not to mention the fact that it's hard to look nonchalant when you're wearing clothes that make people suspicious and your unconscious partner is slung over your shoulder. Oneshot.

 **Genre** : General/Humor

 **Rating** : K plus

 **Disclaimer** : I am not Stan Lee. 'Nuff said.

 **Notes** : I was doing some fanfic-plotting when this idea occured to me, and it amused me so I thought I'd write it down and share it. No major spoilers, but it builds off of Right Beside You in two ways: first, it uses the concept that Bucky is living with Steve in his apartment. Second: It uses an idea for a fic that would be a proper sequel to RBY (but which I am not making any promises to write) in which Bucky joins some of the other Avengers to stop the remaining HYDRA agents. Other than that, I feel that the story stands pretty well on it's own, so I thought I'd post it.

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It was Bill's day off, and he intended to enjoy it. He'd slept late that morning, and when he finally got up, he'd wrapped himself up in his robe and put on his slippers to go to lobby of the apartment to get the newspaper to read over breakfast, as he always did. He had just unlocked his mailbox when the door that led to the street opened up and a man walked in.

The man's presence demanded attention for several reasons. Not only was he a tall, imposing presence dressed in all black, he also had a robotic arm. And slung over the same shoulder that robotic arm emerged from was a clearly unconscious red-headed woman also dressed in black.

There was a very long pause while the two men considered each other and Bill had the sudden thought that even with the woman slung over his shoulder, this man would be very, very capable of taking him in a fight and winning.

But he still had to ask. "What's wrong with her?"

Bucky just stared at him for a moment. It had been a long night and he had been looking forward to going home. Now he was being interrogated by someone who probably thought he was about to commit a sex crime, and was even looking like they might try to stop him (it would be an easy fight if it came but it was not one he was interested in at the moment). The truth was that he and Natasha had been thinning out the field of remaining HYDRA agents and she had caught a tranquilizer dart someone had shot at him, but he wasn't going to say that.

"She had a bit too much to drink last night." He said finally.

"Are you her boyfriend?"

"No, just her friend."

"So…you live here?" Bill asked.

Bucky nodded at Mailbox 2B, which had two names listed over it: _Barnes, James_ and _Rogers, Steven._

"I see."

The other man might have seen, but he didn't offer any help to get open the door that led into the building proper, and with a silent sigh Bucky walked over to the inner door. He balanced Natasha on his shoulder before bringing his robotic arm around and rolling up one of the plates. He flicked his arm down and caught the key as fell out from under the plate before the piece of metal slid back into place, and then he re-balanced Natasha before he dropped her.

Bill had watched the whole thing in amazement. And when he kept staring after it was over, Bucky realized the other man was not looking at his arm anymore, he was looking at the key. More specifically, he was looking at the keychain the key was on: a sparkly white enameled snowflake.

"It's a…inside joke." Bucky said by way of explanation as he shoved the key in the lock to try and open the door as quickly as possible and resisted the urge to rip the door off its hinges to get away from the neighbor who he fervently hoped he would never see again.

The keychain was something he would have expected Tony to give him, but it had been Natasha who had given it to him and told him she expected to see him use it.

"Something for the Winter Soldier." She announced as she came out of the convenience store the now-deceased - but at the time, targeted - HYDRA agent had been working at as a cover during the day. He and Steve and Natasha had stopped there only long enough for Natasha to go in and verify the address of the agent from the store owner, but when Natasha came out she had given him the keychain. He only had the one key to put on it, but he'd used it ever since.

Steve had laughed, but apart from that no one had ever noticed it. Until now.

Bucky managed to get the door open and escaped through it, slamming it shut behind him and resisting the urge to sigh in relief. Then he headed for the stairs.

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Steve was cooking breakfast when Bucky entered the apartment. "What happened?" he asked when he saw Natasha.

"She caught a tranq bullet." Bucky replied as he laid her on the couch. "She'll be fine once she's awake."

"I'll have breakfast ready in a minute."

"Don't hurry for my sake." Bucky sighed.

"Long night?"

"Long morning."

"Long morning?" Steve asked.

"I met one of the neighbors this morning. I hope I never meet him again." Bucky finished as he set off down the hall. Steve grinned and went back to cooking as the water in the bathroom started running.

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 **[A/N:]** I just want to specify for the record that the snowflake keychain is not a Frozen snowflake. It's just a plain, non licensed merchandise one. Bucky just doesn't seem like the kind of guy who, post CAWS, is going to spend a lot of time standing around making small talk, and it's not it's going to be easy to explain what your job is to people who really shouldn't be told those kinds of secrets anyway.

Ideally, someday this will count as fic number three after a sequel to RBY, but I'm still not making any promises. I'm not too super sure about this story, so please let me review and know what you think!


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